5,6-Trans-25-hydroxycholecalciferol: vitamin D analog effective on intestine of anephric rats

A new compound, 5,6-trans-25-hydroxycholecalciferol, has been synthesized and tested for its biological activity. Like 1,25-dihydroxycholecalciferol, it stimulates intestinal calcium transport in anephric rats, whereas 25-hydroxycholecalciferol does not. But this analog has little if any activity in stimulating mobilization of calcium from the bone of anephric rats.

1,25-dihydroxycholecalciferol: metabolite of vitamin D3 active on bone in anephric rats

Nephrectomy prevents completely the bone calcium mobilization response to 25-hydroxycholecalciferol. In contrast it does not prevent this response to 1,25-dihydroxycholecalciferol. Because it is known that the kidney is the site of 1,25-dihydroxycholecalciferol formation, these results provide evidence that 1,25-dihydroxycholecalciferol or a further metabolite thereof and not 25-hydroxycholecalciferol is the metabolically active form of vitamin D(3) responsible for bone calcium mobilization.

Biologic effects of 1,25-dihydroxycholecalciferol (a highly active vitamin D metabolite) in acutely uremic rats

The development of a vitamin D-resistant state in the course of renal failure may be responsible for reduced intestinal absorption of calcium and an impaired response of skeletal tissue. Moreover, the kidney has been shown to carry out the conversion of 25-hydroxycholecalciferol (25-OH-CC) to a highly biologically active metabolite, 1,25-dihydroxycholecalciferol (1,25-diOH-CC). In the present studies, vitamin D-deficient rats, made acutely uremic by either bilateral nephrectomy or urethral ligation, received physiological doses of cholecalciferol (vitamin D(3)) (CC), 25-OH-CC or 1,25-diOH-CC; 24 hr later intestinal calcium transport, in vitro, and bone calcium mobilization, in vivo, were assessed. Whereas CC and 25-OH-CC stimulated calcium transport in sham-operated controls, they were without effect in the uremic animals. In contrast, administration of 1,25-diOH-CC stimulated calcium transport in both groups of uremic animals. Administration of 1,25-diOH-CC also stimulated calcium mobilization from bone in each group of animals. However, CC and 25-OH-CC were only effective in the sham controls and the uremic group produced by urethral ligation and had little or no effect in animals without kidneys. These results indicate that renal conversion of calciferol to a more biologically active form is necessary for the stimulation of intestinal calcium absorption and calcium mobilization from bone, and that 1,25-diOH-CC may bypass a possible defect in vitamin D metabolism in uremia. From these studies it is likely that uremia, per se, may also impair intestinal calcium transport.

1,25-dihydroxycholecalciferol: a potent stimulator of bone resorption in tissue culture

1,25-Dihydroxycholecalciferol (DHCC), isolated from kidney homogenates incubated with 25-hydroxycholecalciferol (HCC), stimulated the release of previously incorporated (45)45Ca from fetal rat bones in organ culture, at concentrations of 10(-10) to 10(-8)M. The dose response curves for 1,25-DHCC and 25-HCC, the parent compound, are parallel, but 1,25-DHCC is about 100 times as potent on a weight basis. Brief exposure to maximum doses of either agent leads to prolonged bone resorption.

Evidence for a direct action of cholecalciferol and 25-hydroxycholecalciferol on the renal transport of phosphate, sodium, and calcium

Acute clearance studies were performed in stable thyroparathyroidectomized dogs to evaluate the possibility of a direct renal action of vitamin D and its biologically active 25-hydroxylated metabolite. Alterations in renal hemodynamics and serum calcium concentration were minimized and attempts at vitamin D depletion were not undertaken. Steady-state volume expansion of modest degree was employed as the control experimental situation so that an effect of the vitamin to enhance phosphate reabsorption would not go undetected because of an already maximal phosphate reabsorptive rate secondary to parathyroidectomy. Under these experimental circumstances, 10,000 U of cholecalciferol and 25-120 U of 25-hydroxycholecalciferol (25-HCC) produced significant depressions in the percentage of filtered phosphate excreted (mean declines of 39 and 47%, respectively), which were not attributable to alterations in renal hemodynamics or to changes in the levels of serum calcium or phosphate. There was an accompanying decline in sodium and calcium excretion; mean percentage excretion rates for sodium fell by 38% with vitamin D and 26% with 25HCC, and for calcium this measurement declined by 46 and 23%, respectively. Furthermore, parathyroid hormone and 25HCC produced antagonistic effects on phosphate excretion. These observations provide the first conclusive evidence for a direct (proximal) tubular action of vitamin D to promote phosphate (as well as sodium and calcium) transport.

Mechanism of action of 1,25-dihydroxycholecalciferol on intestinal calcium transport

The prior administration of actinomycin D prevents the metabolism of [(3)H]25-hydroxycholecalciferol to 1,25-dihydroxycholecalciferol, a metabolite of vitamin D(3) that is effective in the stimulation of intestinal calcium transport. In this paper, the question of whether the response of intestinal calcium transport to 1,25-dihydroxycholecalciferol is sensitive to actinomycin D was examined. While the response of intestinal transport to physiological amounts of 25-hydroxycholecalciferol is blocked by actinomycin D, the response of intestinal calcium transport to 1,25-dihydroxycholecalciferol is insensitive to the antibiotic. These results suggest that 1,25-dihydroxycholecalciferol, or a further metabolite thereof, is the metabolically active form of vitamin D in the intestine, that it functions by a process not involving transcription of DNA, and that the step sensitive to actinomycin D in the action of vitamin D on the intestine does not occur in the intestine, but is the conversion of 25-hydroxycholecalciferol to 1,25-dihydroxycholecalciferol in the kidney.